Oklahoma Casualty Study Guide

Oklahoma’s casualty law is best learned as a sequence of dates. The workers’ compensation system became administrative in 2014. Uninsured motorist stacking switched off by default that same year. The state fund became a private mutual in 2015. The employer opt-out was struck down in 2016. If your study material predates any of those, it is wrong about that part of the state.

Uninsured motorist — the rejection is permanent

Every Oklahoma auto policy must offer uninsured motorist coverage, and the named insured or applicant “shall have the right to reject uninsured motorist coverage in writing” (36 O.S. §3636(G)). Note what the statute requires and what it does not: writing, yes; the rejection made on the application itself, no.

Then the part that catches candidates from other states. That rejection “shall remain valid for the life of the policy and the completion of a new selection form shall not be required when a renewal, reinstatement, substitute, replacement, or amended policy is issued.” And the insurer “shall not be required to notify any insured in any renewal … as to the availability of such uninsured motorist coverage.” Sign it once and it holds forever, with no duty to re-offer.

Limits, setoff and stacking

The compulsory minimums are 25 / 50 / 25 under 47 O.S. §7-324, and they have not moved since Laws 2004, c. 519 — despite a run of 2026-dated articles about “Oklahoma car insurance laws changing.” Watch the citation direction too: §3636 cross-refers to 47 O.S. §7-204 for the UM floor, not to §7-324.

Oklahoma is an add-on state, not a setoff state: “any payment made by the insured tort-feasor shall not reduce or be a credit against the total liability limits as provided in the insured’s own uninsured motorist coverage” (§3636(F)).

Stacking has two eras and a hard date. Policies “issued, renewed or reinstated after November 1, 2014, shall not be subject to stacking or aggregation of limits unless expressly provided for by an insurance carrier.” Non-stacking is the default; the carrier has to opt back in.

The 15% remedy — and the coverage it does not reach

36 O.S. §3629(B) is probably the most distinctive first-party provision in the Oklahoma code. It requires the insurer to submit a written offer of settlement or a rejection within 60 days of proof of loss, and then: “Upon a judgment rendered to either party, costs and attorney fees shall be allowable to the prevailing party. For purposes of this section, the prevailing party is the insurer in those cases where judgment does not exceed written offer of settlement.” Where the insured prevails, “the court in rendering judgment shall add interest on the verdict at the rate of fifteen percent (15%) per year from the date the loss was payable pursuant to the provisions of the contract to the date of the verdict.”

It is an offer-of-judgment mechanic baked into the insurance code, running both directions. And then the last sentence: “This provision shall not apply to uninsured motorist coverage.”

Total loss on a vehicle — the taxes and fees are statutory

36 O.S. §1250.8 permits two settlement methods and attaches the same obligation to both: the insurer must cover “all applicable taxes, license fees and other fees incident to a transfer of evidence of ownership.” Many states leave that to the policy or to bulletin guidance; Oklahoma puts it in the statute.

A cash settlement must be built from one of three sources — local market pricing within the last 90 days, dealer quotations from the local market area, or “the cost of a comparable motor vehicle as quoted in the latest edition of the National Automobile Dealers Association Official Used Car Guide.” Any deduction must be “itemized and specified as to dollar amount” in the claim file.

Since 1 November 2025, post-loss assignment of benefits is void: soliciting or accepting an assignment of post-loss insurance benefits for property damage under collision, comprehensive, residential or commercial policies is prohibited, and “an assignment agreement is against public policy and is null and void” (§1230).

Fault, and the residual market

Oklahoma is a tort state with no mandatory PIP, running modified comparative negligence with a 51% bar (23 O.S. §13) — a claimant recovers, reduced by their share, only where their negligence is not of a greater degree than the defendant’s, so a claimant exactly 50% at fault still recovers. The assigned-risk mechanism is the Oklahoma Automobile Insurance Plan, administered through AIPSO; do not substitute another state’s plan name for it.

Workers’ compensation — four dates and one label that is half right

Oklahoma moved from a court-based system to an administrative one on 1 February 2014; adjudication now sits with the Oklahoma Workers’ Compensation Commission under Title 85A, while a Workers’ Compensation Court of Existing Claims handles pre-reform matters. Coverage is mandatory once an employer has one or more employees, with limited exemptions.

CompSource Mutual Insurance Company is where most stale material goes wrong. 85 O.S. §375.3 says it “shall not be considered a state agency, public body, department, public trust” — it stopped being the state fund on 1 January 2015 — and, in the same section, that it “shall provide workers’ compensation insurance to any employer in Oklahoma which seeks such insurance and meets other reasonable requirements.” It is a private mutual and the carrier of last resort. Neither label alone is correct.

The employer opt-out — the Oklahoma Employee Injury Benefit Act — was held unconstitutional in Vasquez v. Dillard’s, Inc., 2016 OK 89, 381 P.3d 768, on the special-law prohibition — the Court found that point dispositive and expressly declined to reach the equal-protection, due-process and access-to-courts challenges. The implementing rules at OAC 365:25 Subchapter 25 are still published in the Administrative Code, which is precisely why so much material still describes the option as available.

One last piece worth carrying: workers’ compensation claims are the one uncapped category under the property and casualty guaranty association. Where every other covered claim is limited to $150,000 per claimant, the Association pays “the full amount of a covered claim for benefits under a workers’ compensation insurance coverage.”